A Whole New World
by Dhrelva
Summary: AU. Lex is abducted. By aliens.
1. Kidnapped

Title: A Whole New World  
Author: Dhrelva  
Rating: PG  
Spoilers: concepts from Skinwalkers, Rosetta, Relic, and Talisman  
Category: pre-Smallville, Alternate Universe  
Summary: Young Lex is abducted. By aliens.

* * *

Metropolis, 1984 

Lex Luthor was four. He could read, and he could add. That made him a smart boy. He could reach all of the buttons on the elevator when he stood on his tippy toes. That made him a big boy. He could drag a chair close enough to the counter to get on it and get to the cookies. That made him a smart big boy. Therefore, Lex concluded, he was good enough to start school. And he didn't mean stupid nursery school which seemed more like a playgroup than an education from what Mommy said about it. That was why Daddy wasn't enrolling him in one.

He was more than qualified enough to start first grade, though, and he didn't understand why his father wasn't putting him in one of those classes. Tutors were stupid and boring. He wanted to go to school. Daddy said he was a Luthor. Daddy said nothing was impossible for Luthors. Lex didn't have to be a smart big boy to understand that, together, these meant that Lex could go to school, even if Daddy didn't sign him up for it.

So he had found the phone book and he had found out where the closest elementary school was. Then he had gotten his favorite bag and put some of Daddy's pens and notepads in it. Then he had gotten his coat and made sure one of his inhalers and his hand-drawn map were in the pocket. Then he listened to made sure Mommy was still busy practicing on the piano, and snuck out the door of their Metropolis penthouse and pushed the button for the elevator.

When it finally arrived, Lex was fidgeting and looking nervously toward the penthouse door, but the elevator door opened before Mommy realized he was sneaking out, and he made his escape cleanly. He pushed the button for the ground floor and he was on his way.

The front receptionist and the security guard were talking to each other and didn't even look his way as he stepped into the lobby and purposefully crossed to the big rotating glass doors. He tucked up behind a lady who looked a little like Mommy (but not really) so nobody would think he was by himself. That had been his mistake last time he tried to leave. But now he was smart and big, so he wasn't gonna fall into that trap again.

Once out on the sidewalk, Lex leaned up against the Luthor building as he consulted his map. ('Consulted' was his newest word. Daddy had explained what it meant before he went to work this morning. Lex bet other first graders didn't know what 'consulted' meant. Maybe he should start in second grade?) The map told him to go past three roads, then he'd make a turn toward the side that he writes with onto Congress Street. Lex started walking.

The first road he had to cross was easy. The white "WALK" lit up just as he got to it and he stayed close to a man who was also crossing the street. He had to run a little to keep up, but he was a big boy now and he managed this successfully, even if he did have to use his inhaler when he got to the other side. The next stretch of sidewalk was really long and it felt like forever before he got to the next road.

This one didn't have a walk sign, but it wasn't much more than an alley, so Lex looked both ways then hurried across when he didn't see anyone wanting to drive where he wanted to walk. It was a shorter distance to the next road, but it was a big road with lots of lanes, and a whole crowd of people were already standing at the corner waiting to cross. Lex mingled in with them, ducking under arms and squeezing between people to get to the front. He might be a big boy, but he still had short legs and he wanted as much of a head start as he could get when the light turned to say WALK.

As he brushed past some guy, he tripped over a crack in the sidewalk grabbed onto a metal rod the man was holding, hoping to catch his balance. Lex was quite astonished when it crumbled to dust in his hands. The dust, obviously, didn't hold him up and he crashed to the ground, scraping the heels of his hands on the pavement and knocking his bag off his shoulder. The man whose rod disintegrated helped him stand up again, righted his bag, but didn't let go of him.

Neither did he cross the street when the rest of the people started to move. He didn't let Lex follow them either. Lex tried to wiggle away, he was a lot smaller than the man and the guy had a strong grip. He thought about yelling for help and claiming he was being kidnapped, but the man was just kneeling in front of him, staring, and he didn't want to give the guy ideas. Instead he tried to tug away again, saying, "Leggo, I have to go to school."

The man didn't even seem to notice. Lex was starting to get creeped out. Nobody had ever looked at him like this before. A lot of shock and even a little fear. He wasn't blinking. He didn't even breathe until he said, "Se'geeth."

That wasn't English. At least, Lex didn't think it sounded like English. But it might be a bad word. It sounded like a bad word. Or maybe it meant 'God' in some language and it was a prayer. It sort of sounded like a prayer, too. Not that Lex had heard a lot of prayers or curses, but he blamed that fact for why he couldn't tell which this was. "Leggo," he tried again, deciding that if it didn't work this time he _was _going to scream that he was being kidnapped.

The man suddenly stood and picked him up. Lex shrieked at the top of his lungs. Only wide fields of wheat heard him, though, because they weren't in Metropolis anymore. He was put down on a dirt road. Lex had no idea where he was, but anywhere not here was better than with the freaky man who stared at him, so he turned and ran toward the wheat, hoping to be able to hide until he could find a way to call home. He had both the penthouse number and Daddy's work number memorized. Today, he probably needed Daddy.

He didn't even make it to the field before the man was in front of him again. Kneeling there, like before. Holding him by his arms. Staring. Lex felt his chest tighten and knew a panic-induced asthma attack was about to hit. He fumbled for his inhaler. The man didn't stop him. Two medicated breaths helped but he was still more scared than he'd ever been. "Take me back," he tried to order commandingly, like Daddy would do, but his voice shook and broke on the words, and he felt tears on his face.

The man touched the tears, and pulled at a red curl. "This?" he asked, with as much scorn as Daddy would use if he saw Lex crying like he was, "This is Se'geeth?" And then he laughed. Despite his jacket and the bright Kansas sun, Lex felt chilled. Like a ghost had just walked through him. Lex had a really awful feeling like something really bad was about to happen. Something that he wouldn't ever be able to set right again. Something that not even _Daddy _would be able to set right.

Hands cupped his face gently, almost like Mommy would do, and brushed away his tears. The sense of impending disaster was so strong, he couldn't even function well enough to produce more. The man smiled. It was scary. Like some of Daddy's. "We're going to take a little trip, Se'geeth." That, too, was a Daddy voice. The one that meant he was in serious trouble. Lex was having trouble breathing again. Two more medicated inhalations jump-started his lungs again, but he still felt paralyzed.

The man continued, having paused long enough to let Lex re-learn how to draw oxygen into his body. "I have some friends who would be very interested in meeting you. They'll be here in a few days."

"W-why do th-they want t-to meet m-me?" He didn't think it was because he was a Luthor. In fact, he was pretty sure that the creepy man didn't even know he _was _a Luthor.

He smiled again, though it was a creepy smile that hid something like malice. "You have a destiny."

Lex blinked, the familiar words shocking him into clear speech. "Daddy says that, too." Was there something about him that told people he was special? Could everyone just look at him and _know _he had a destiny? It was a kind of weird thing to say to a person, especially a stranger, so there had to be a reason people kept telling him this.

The man looked at him sharply, "What sort of destiny does your father say you have?"

He was a smart boy. He knew better than to mention LuthorCorp to strange creepy men who carried him off to the middle of nowhere in a split second. His first name would probably be safe to bring up, though, and he needed a good answer. "I was named after Alexander the Great. I will do great things." It wasn't even a lie. Daddy said that all the time, too.

The look directed at him was hard to interpret. The man wasn't happy with the response though. The last of Lex's bravado dried up and he tried to curl into himself. He also wished really hard for the ground to open up beneath - well, it would be really helpful if it swallowed the man up. But it didn't eat either of them. Stupid ground.

The man's thin-lipped expression cleared after a moment, and he nodded, as if coming to a decision. "We have some time before my friends arrive, so you should probably rest, Se'geeth." Lex tried to pull away as the guy's hand moved toward the top of his head, but there was a small flash of pain and the world went black around him.

* * *

Lionel Luthor was deep in projections for next quarter when his secretary buzzed him. "Your wife is on the line, she sounds worried about something." 

He turned toward the phone, picked up the handset, and pushed the button to take the call. "Lillian?"

'Worried' didn't cover it. She was frantic. "Have you heard from Lex? I can't find him. He's not in the penthouse. The guard downstairs hasn't seen him. He's gone, Lionel!"

Lionel closed his eyes and counted to five. It didn't really help, but he didn't have the time to spare to count up to a hundred. "Lillian, breathe. I'll check with building security and see if they caught him leaving on the cameras. I'll be home in twenty minutes."

She still sounded close to hyperventilation, but she answered in a more coherent manner. "Security cameras. Yes. Good. I'll see you soon."

Lionel hung up and left his office. "Clear my schedule for the rest of the day," he told the secretary, "and call down to security to tell them I want unrestricted access to this morning's security footage for the penthouse hallway, our elevator, the stairwell, and every exit."

Knowing better than to ask what was wrong, she nodded, "Right away, sir."

The security people, when he reached them, already had the sequence of interest ready for him. No doubt they anticipated his descending upon them when Lillian asked the lobby guard if he'd seen Lex. What he saw proved quite clearly that Lex had deliberately left the building. When he was found, the boy was going to seriously regret this. "Find him," he ordered, then swept out of the office and took the elevator up to the penthouse.

Lillian looked a wreck. "He snuck out again, this time successfully," Lionel told her, he couldn't help but feel a little bit of pride at the boy's accomplishment, but anger and worry guaranteed it wouldn't show once the child was brought back. That was just as well, it would only encourage him. "I have people looking for him."

She was pulling on her coat before he finished speaking. "We'll look for him, too. Last time he wanted a soft ice cream cone."

"Yes," Lionel agreed, staying calm in the crisis because that was what he was good at, "but we've bought him an ice cream machine. He doesn't need to run away for that now."

"Movie theatre popcorn," she came up with next, "he was angry I wouldn't get him any last night when we saw Pinocchio."

Lionel nodded slowly. He was fairly certain there was no popcorn in the penthouse. His eye fell on the phone book lying in the middle of the floor. His son was resourceful, he'd give the boy that, but he didn't clean his tracks very well. Lionel would have to lecture the boy about that. He hurried to the nearest phone, his eyes never leaving the Yellow Pages. "Send a man up. I want to know what page in the phone book my son was looking at. My wife and I will be checking movie theatres for him, call the limo phone if you find anything." Another call took care of getting the limo brought around, and then he and Lillian left the apartment.

Lex was not at any of the nearby movie theaters, not unless he had gotten an adult to buy him a ticket and was actually watching something. None of the ticket sales people remembered seeing a young red-haired boy, though, so Lionel wasn't going to wait around. They were all given the limo number, the penthouse number, and the security number. A promised reward of very generous proportions guaranteed those numbers would be used in the off chance they did spot him. He was satisfied that if Lex _was _at any of those theatres, he'd soon know.

The security man, a retired private investigator, had determined that Lex was looking at elementary schools and had drawn a map to one on Congress Street, only four blocks away from the Luthor building. The principal there claimed he never saw the boy. The route Lex had drawn out was traced, but he wasn't anywhere along it. None of the questioned passers-by had noticed him.

Lillian was starting to panic again, and Lionel was beginning to suspect that Lex had run into trouble. "Winters," he spoke to the driver, "bring us home." Looking back at his wife, he said, "There's nothing more we can do but wait." He didn't say that what they were waiting for was a ransom call, but by the frightened look in her eyes, he doubted he needed to.

* * *

It wasn't easy to contact Krypton from Earth, but Jud-El managed it. The equipment in the Smallville caves helped a lot with boosting the signal. He looked over at the boy, confirming once again that Se'geeth was still unconscious. Not that him being awake would pose a problem. The child was bound, and would be incapable of understanding Kryptonian. 

"Jud-El," a familiar voice seem to come from the whole cave wall. "You are supposed to be in exile."

Jud shrugged, though Jor-El would be unable to see it. "Yeah, well, you better come pick me up early." He looked at the boy again. "The End comes, brother. I found Se'geeth."

There was a long pause. "You found Se'geeth." There was disbelief in his voice.

"Se'geeth cannot touch palac stone. Bring some with you when you come back for us and I will prove I have found him."

There was another pause, but this was shorter. It may have even been caused only by transmission delay. "Us? You have him with you? Jud, that man is dangerous."

Jud-El laughed. "You will understand when you see him."

Jud imagined Jor-El scowling. The tone of his next words confirmed that he was doing just that. "I will come quickly, Jud-El, but Lara will not be happy about us cutting our wedding month short."

"Then tell her to use your absence to find out why our planet and all of us but Naman will die within the next few years. We have been given a warning we never expected. Let us make the most of it." There was a quiet groan from the boy. "Se'geeth wakes, Jor-El. I must go. Hurry."

"I will. Be careful, Jud."

Though it hadn't truly been glowing, the cave wall appeared to dull as the connection was closed. The boy's eyes were large. "The wall talked," Se'geeth observed in something like awe.

"Yes," Jud agreed, not wanting to get into a technical discussion with a very young human child. It occurred to him with some dismay that he was going to need to keep the kid alive for the next few days until Jor-El could get here. Fantastic. Like he knew the first thing about child care. At least Se'geeth could talk. With an internal sigh, he asked, "Are you hungry?"

The boy shook his head.

"Well, let me know if you need anything." That should cover all the possible situations that might require his interference.

"I need to pee." Lovely. At least the kid wasn't crying and having breathing attacks anymore.

* * *

Three days and Lex was still gone. No ransom demands, no substantiated sightings called in. Nothing. The police had found one man who reported seeing a red haired boy fall down and get picked up by a dark haired man. That had happened beside fourth avenue and was halfway along Lex's route between the Luthor building and the elementary school. Aside from trace DNA evidence that Lex had been there, and a sketch of the man's face, though, that hadn't really helped much. Both a recent photo of Lex and the sketch of the man were being shown on every news station as well as the Daily Planet. The police were flooded with calls, but none of them brought Lex back. 

Lillian was doing poorly. She didn't sleep, she didn't speak, and she didn't eat. She jumped every time the phone rang. If she didn't snap out of it soon, Lionel was going to have to bring in a doctor for her.

He only hoped that she would survive finding out that their son was dead. Lionel knew the statistics for kidnapping. The odds were against Lex now. He hoped the body turned up soon. It was cruel not knowing.

* * *

The ship came in under cover of night and landed beside the caves. Jor-El and two others entered the cave in a tight formation, weapons drawn and eyes darting around as if expecting imminent attack. Jud leaned against a cave wall drinking a Diet Coke and smirking at them. "Everything's under control," he drawled, in English, "You can put the guns away. You'll scare Se'geeth." He waved casually toward the boy who was sitting cross-legged on the cave floor doing a word search puzzle from the Smallville Ledger. After the first dozen escape attempts, he'd realized there was no way he was going to outrun Jud, so he'd stopped trying. It had made the last day and a half much easier. 

Three muzzles trained on the kid, who did, as predicted, look terrified. The guns only lowered and got tucked away when the kid's fumbling hands drew out his inhaler and he breathed in two deep breaths. "Se'geeth," Jud continued, "these are the friends I mentioned who were interested in meeting you." The boy's blue-grey eyes warily studied Jor-El and the others, but he seemed fairly calm now that no weapons were pointed at him anymore. The kid didn't talk much, and Jud wasn't surprised when he stayed silent now. "Jor, you brought the palac stone?"

The round rock that Jor-El produced was nothing like the dagger given to the Kawatche people, or the direction rod he'd been using to try to navigate Metropolis with, but it was made of the same material. Jud pushed himself up and took the stone from his brother, then squatted down beside Se'geeth. The other three moved closer to get a good view. "Se'geeth, hold this for us, will you?"

Se'geeth looked at all four of them suspiciously, but he cupped his hands to hold the rock in. Jud dropped it into the waiting bowl of fingers. A flash bright light made them all blink, and Se'geeth held only dust. He looked up at them nervously, biting his lip. "Why did it do that?" he whispered when no one yelled at him for breaking it.

When the other three remained silent, Jud answered, "Because you are Se'geeth."

He looked unsatisfied by this answer, but he did not ask again about Se'geeth. He had learned those questions were fruitless even before he learned that running wasn't going to help. He had only tried once to get Jud to call him by his human name. Jud had been insistant that 'you are Se'geeth' and he hadn't tried again.

"He is Se'geeth," one of the other Kryptonians said, in Kryptonian, sounding shocked. Jud could sympathize.

"Let us kill him and be done with it," the other one said, also in Kryptonian, which Jud was grateful for because the kid had enough trouble breathing without comments like that to scare him.

"He's just a boy," the first disagreed.

"A boy who will grow to become the Bearer of Darkness," Jor-El pointed out. "A boy who will someday be strong enough to face Naman."

"For now, though, he is still a boy," the first man reiterated. "We cannot kill a boy."

Jud decided now was a good time to speak. "We could take him back with us. If he dies with Krypton, nobody will need to kill him."

They looked at each other. The first man nodded slowly, "This is acceptable. We will be able to watch him this way. Perhaps we may even avert the prophesy altogether by finding him so young."

Jor-El nodded as well, "Let us do this for now. We can cryofreeze him until the Council has a chance to convene and discuss him. We should also try to identify Naman before we allow him to wake."


	2. Adjustment Period

Title: A Whole New World  
Author: Dhrelva  
Rating: PG  
Spoilers: concepts from Skinwalkers, Rosetta, Relic, and Talisman  
Category: pre-Smallville, Alternate Universe  
Summary: Young Lex is abducted. By aliens.

* * *

Note: I just want to clarify a few things about the universe in which this story is happening. So I'm going to give a really brief timeline. I make no claim as to the accuracy of this in canon.  
_ A really really long time ago: _A Kryptonian or Kawatche prophet/timetraveller/druggie experienced the Naman/Segeeth future. They told others about it , and the Legend of Naman and Segeeth was born.  
_ A really long time ago:_ The Kawatche and Kryptonian people met. The legend spread to whichever didn't know about it beforehand. The Palac dagger was given over to the Kawatche and Skinwalkers were created.  
_ A long time ago: _The Kawatche wrote the legend on a cave wall.  
_ Some time ago:_ The Kawatche lost their cave wall.  
_ Less time ago:_ Jor-El was born, then, as a young Kryptonian, visited Earth briefly.  
_ Recently: _The events in this story.

* * *

_In Loving Memory of  
Alexander Joseph Luthor  
Beloved Son of Lionel and Lillian Luthor  
1980-1984  
Fly high on the wings of greatness, Lex  
From lofty heights, may you find your way home  
_  
Lionel stood over the ornate but empty grave. The model of the Trojan horse that he had brought sat among the flowers delivered for the anniversary of his son's disappearance. Lillian stood several feet away, the infant Julian in her arms and tears on her pale face. It had been four years. If he was still alive, which seemed unlikely, Lex had lived with his kidnapper for as long as he had lived with his real parents. The police case was never closed and his own men still looked, but Lionel did not expect to ever learn what had happened to Alexander. 

He took a few minutes to lecture about Helen of Troy and made one or two correlations to the present time and LuthorCorp, but that was secondary. He just wanted to give his dead son a toy horse. He brushed the dirt from his knee and returned to Lillian's side. He kissed Julian's head. "Don't ever leave home without your mother or I, Julian. You don't want to disappear like Lex did."

Julian just gurgled and pulled his father's hair.

* * *

The first three years after finding Se'geeth had been busy. The scientific community had only barely managed to find the massive amount of pressure building in the planet core in time to do anything about it. It had taken the combined effort of everyone on Krypton to find a way to release the pressure without causing the world to explode prematurely, and then execute the appropriate course of action. 

The council was too swamped with the imminent end of the world to bother dealing with the little detail of what to do with Se'geeth himself. Consequently, he was left in cryosleep until such a time as they were able to deal with the problem. In a top secret military lab, a cryochamber sat in the corner of a little used room which only one lone doctor had access to. He came by twice a week to check that the human boy's vitals were still strong.

Even after the disaster was averted and Naman was identified as the young son of Jor-El and Lara, Se'geeth was left to sleep on. It might have continued indefinitely, but six years after Se'geeth's arrival on the planet, the military doctor came before the Council.

"If you want the boy to wake, you are going to have to do it soon. His life signs are beginning to falter. Human children are not meant to spend more of their life in stasis than alive."

The debate was fierce. Three distinct schools of thought emerged on the matter. The first wanted to let him remain a frozen body for eternity. Another wanted to wake him and return him to Earth. The last wanted to integrate him into Kryptonian society. The first group was the smallest minority. Se'geeth might be a danger in the future, but his very existence had allowed them to survive a geothermal event that would have killed all of them; they felt they owed him some gratitude for that. Besides which, the Naman-falling-to-Earth-in-a-rain-of-fire part of the prophesy was now impossible, so it was entirely possible that Se'geeth may never become dangerous anyway.

That, and he was just a boy. The Earth may have orbited nine times around the Yellow Sun he was born beneath, but the child's development had been arrested in his fourth year. He was effectively the same age as Naman.

The third group argued that returning him to Earth would put him back on the path that would lead him to become the Bearer of Darkness. The second group said that better Earth deal with him than Krypton. The third group argued back that they couldn't return a four-year-old back to Earth when Se'geeth should be nine; humans were notorious for treating people they didn't understand badly. Someone suggested they ask Se'geeth what he wanted to do. Another debate raged over whether they should do what Se'geeth requested or the opposite, but just when they decided they would follow the boy's wish, came the observation that the futures of two worlds rested on the whim of a four-year-old.

The original debate broke out anew.

Finally, a vote was taken. By the slimmest of margins, it was decided that Se'geeth would be kept on Krypton where he could be monitored. As the doctor was sent away to rouse him, a related debate broke out that was even more fiercely argued than the previous one.

It was one thing to decide to keep him on Krypton. It was entirely another to decide who would be given the responsibility of raising Se'geeth, the prophesized Bearer of Darkness. It was still a third to decide whether everyone should know Se'geeth was Se'geeth or if it would be better to let him fade into anonymity. Without the Yellow Sun to strengthen them, Kryptonians were not _significantly_ different than humans. It was possible he could blend in with them. At least, it was possible so long as the Council did not announce that Se'geeth lived among them.

* * *

Lex groaned and shivered. "C-cold," he stuttered, gratefully grasping at a blanket that someone placed over him. He pulled it tightly around himself and curled onto his side. Well, he tried to curl onto his side. That didn't work though, because he appeared to be in some kind of box, and he banged his knees against its side instead. That unexpected jolt made him snap his eyes open, which was a big mistake because it was very bright in the box. He squeezed them shut again with a pained whimper. 

A large hand rubbed his shoulder, and that felt good. Not only was a massage welcome against the aching muscles there, but the hand warmed him, too. A voice spoke to him, but he didn't understand the words. No. That was wrong. He knew one of the words. Dread and fear rose in him as that word lifted the memory of the last few days to his conscious mind. He'd been kidnapped. Kidnapped and held in a cave. Then other people had come. And those people and his kidnapper had all called him by the same name this guy just did. Se'geeth.

Lex pulled the blanket over his head and tried to will away the world. It didn't work, but he did manage to fall back asleep, which was close enough for the time being.

When he woke again, he was in a real bed. Granted, it was a hospital bed, but it was better than a cold box. There were a bunch of grown-ups standing around him, looking very official and a little nervous. He picked out at least two that had to be security. That made sense. Daddy had found him and had set bodyguards. Lex smiled and relaxed into the mattress. "Where's Mommy?" he asked drowsily, his eyes darting between the people, trying to pick her out but she wasn't there.

Lex started to get another bad feeling as the grown-ups started shifting uneasily and looking at each other. Then one of them spoke to another angrily, and the words were not in English. Somebody hurried out of the room, and then returned a few minutes later accompanied by the kidnapper.

That couldn't be a good thing. Lex fumbled for his inhaler, but couldn't find it. Desperately, he turned to the one man he _knew_ spoke English. "Inhaler?" Already his breaths were coming in shorter and shorter gasps, and his growing panic wasn't helping at all.

His kidnapper snapped at a man who was probably a doctor in that other language. A few moments of controlled chaos later, and the doctor had maneuvered through the crowd of people, grabbed some kind of breathing mask, and fitted it over Lex's nose and mouth. "Hold that there," the kidnapper instructed. Lex nodded and held that there while he breathed. He hated asthma. Hated it.

Crisis past, one of the grown-ups spoke to the kidnapper, and then the kidnapper sat down on the bed next to him and spoke to him, "Se'geeth, the Council has decided to keep you here on Krypton."

Lex lowered the breathing mask to scowl at all of them. The other people were obviously part of 'the Council' that Daddy wouldn't pay ransom to. Stupid kidnappers. Stupid LuthorCorp policy. Daddy would find him, though. At least they weren't killing him. "Where is Krypton?" he asked, because if he did manage to sneak out of the hospital, he'd have to find his way back to Metropolis somehow and he didn't remember ever hearing 'Krypton' mentioned by anyone. It probably wasn't even in Kansas. Daddy owned most of Kansas so he'd know it if Lex were in a hospital anywhere in the state.

The doctor said something that prompted the kidnapper to push the mask back up over his face. Stupid asthma. "Keep that there, Se'geeth. And Krypton is a planet a long way away from Earth."

Lex frowned and had to work his mind around that one for a minute. He lowered the mask again, "You mean I'm in outer space?" When his kidnapper (an alien?) nodded, Lex gave the only possible response under the circumstances, "Cool."

The kidnapper smirked a bit at that, and pushed the breathing mask back up over Lex's mouth. "Glad you think so, kid, because you're living here now."

Living in outer space? For a moment, excitement bubbled up in him, but then he realized the problem with it. He lowered the mask again. "Daddy can't find me here." If he'd been on Earth, Lex was sure it would only be a matter of time before he was brought home, but even LuthorCorp's reach didn't extend to other planets.

"I'm sorry, kid," the kidnapper said, pushing up the mask again. Stupid mask. "Keep breathing, please." Stupid lungs. Stupid eyes. "C'mon, no, Se'geeth, don't cry."

A woman pushed her way through the bunch of grown-ups and pulled the kidnapper away. She sat down in his place and pulled Lex over into a hug, simultaneously holding the breathing mask in place with one hand, while rubbing circles on his back with the other. She cooed soothingly and it almost didn't matter that Lex didn't speak her language.

"Se'geeth," the kidnapper's dry tone spoke over her, "this is your foster mother, Nora Wes-Ur."

Lex didn't want a foster mother. He wanted _his_ mother. But his mother was on another planet and this lady was here. He clung to her tightly, then pushed the mask away long enough to whisper, "My name is Lex." He didn't think it would change anything, but he wanted to give his real name one last shot. A foster mother might care enough to use it.

The kidnapper seemed to translate what Lex had said, because he heard his name spoken surrounded by foreign words. The foster woman lady brushed fingers over Lex's curls and repeated it in the right places. Her clothes started getting really wet after that, but he wasn't crying because Daddy said Luthors don't cry.

* * *

The next time he woke up, he was in a brightly decorated room. Lots of reds and blues and purples. He was also alone. It was the first time he remembered being alone since he was taken out of Metropolis. He got out of bed and immediately noticed he wasn't wearing his clothes from Earth anymore. Alien pajamas were, well, pretty close to normal pajamas, but without the feet and they weren't as fuzzy. They also didn't have any zippers, snaps, ties, or elastics. How he was supposed to get them off, he had no idea. 

Deciding for the moment that the window was of more immediate interest than finding a way to undress himself, he crossed the carpeted floor and pushed aside the shade. The sun was large and red, but what really drew his attention was that the whole sky was a light purple instead of blue. Lex stared in open-mouthed fascination at this proof that he really was on a whole new world.

He was still staring at it when the door to his room opened and the woman introduced as his foster mother entered. She said something in the alien language.

This was dumb. Who put a kid with a foster mom who didn't even speak the same language? Despite this failing, though, Lex did like her a lot more than he liked the kidnapper, just on principle. Daddy did say the best way to learn something is by doing. Lex guessed he was gonna learn to speak this language real fast. Best start now. He held a hand over his heart and said, "Name Lex." Then, he reached over and put it over hers. "Name Nora."

She caught on right away and smiled. "Lex," she agreed, repeating his gesture, then brought it back over her heart and said firmly, "Nona."

"Nona," Lex repeated, taking that to be alien for 'Mommy'. He could call her 'Nona'. He couldn't call her 'Mommy', but he could call her 'Nona'. The next few hours were occupied by teaching Lex vocabulary. It was mostly nouns, which was a little frustrating when he wanted to ask questions, but when he found a pen and paper - well, a writing implement and a disposable surface - he figured out how to ask his two biggest ones.

First he drew two large stick figures, then a little one. He pointed to the little one and said "Lex." Then he pointed to one of the big ones, and said, "Nona." Then he pointed to the last one, and looked up at her questioningly.

"Wes-Ur," she told him. "Nopan." She pointed back at the one designated Nona, and said, "Nora Wes-Ur, Nona." Then back at the other grown figure, and repeated, "Wes-Ur, Nopan."

"Nopan," Lex echoed, gathering that was alien for 'Daddy' and his name was Wes-El. Satisfied that he was going to have a foster father as well as a foster mother, he moved on to the next big question. He drew another small figure and looked up at her.

She shook her head. No siblings then. That was probably good. He scribbled out the second little stick figure, and wrote LEX under the first one. He offered the pen to her and pointed back at the paper. "Write Lex," he instructed her, feeling a little frustrated that she probably didn't know what 'write' meant.

She apparently figured it out though, because she made a few symbols beneath where he'd written his name. He took the pen back and copied it over and over until he felt confident he could write his own name in the alien language. Daddy had thought this was very important for him to know in English, so he figured it was just as important in Alien.

These questions answered and that ability mastered, he left the pen and paper behind and led Nona to the kitchen. "Hungry," he told her, holding both hands over his stomach and using an alien word she'd taught him earlier. By the bright and proud smile this caused, he figured he'd gotten it right and hadn't accidentally told her 'stove' or anything.

* * *

Nopan arrived as the big red sun was setting. Lex regarded him with uncertainty. In his experience, Daddies were not the nicest of people, especially when they just got home from work, which is where he was assuming Nopan had been. This man was even taller and broader than Daddy was, which made Lex even more wary. He wished he knew how to say 'Sir' in Alien. 

Lacking that basic vocabulary, he instead stood up to his full height of whatever his full height was. Something a lot shorter than Daddy. "Nopan?" he asked in his most formal tone.

Nopan just _looked_ at Lex for a moment, then addressed a disdainful question toward Nona.

Her lips pressed together in anger, and Lex got the impression Nopan wasn't happy with him. He _knew_ he should have gone with 'sir'. Stupid aliens who didn't even speak English.

Nona snapped something at Nopan, but Nopan just gave him gave him another once-over of appraisal. Lex had seen Daddy do the same with things he was thinking about buying. If Nopan had been Daddy, he wouldn't have bought whatever brought that expression to his face. Lex bit his lower lip and hoped he wasn't going to be thrown out. He was just starting to get used to the idea that Nona would be taking care of him now. She kinda reminded him of Pamela.

Nopan said something short and dismissive, then went into the bedroom that wasn't Lex's and closed the door as if making a point about it. Lex got the idea that he wasn't welcome in there.

Looking back toward Nona, he found her closing the distance between them, kneeling in front of him, then pulling him into a hug. She said stuff in Alien that he didn't understand. At a guess, he figured she was telling him not to mind what Nopan said, but that was hard because he didn't even know what it was that his foster father did say. Except that it wasn't anything good.

* * *

Within two weeks, Lex had come to four conclusions. The first was that days seemed to be a little longer here. Or maybe he just had a later bedtime. The second was that Alien was easier to pick up once he got down a few critical verbs, prepositions, and articles. The third was he apparently didn't have asthma anymore, which was really, really great. He hadn't had an attack since the hospital. And the final conclusion he reached was more a shift in understanding than a conclusion. 

He was on an alien world. That made _him_ the alien.

That epiphany had been reached right after he figured out that was what Nopan had been calling him for the last few days. He'd thought it meant 'boy' until Nona lost her temper over it and gave enough clues during her rant for him to figure out its actual definition. While they yelled at each other over it, he ran off to his room, locked his door, and did the Luthor thing of making his pillow wet without crying until Nona came in (he guessed she either had a key or he hadn't figured out the locking mechanism as well as he thought he had) and began rubbing his back.

After that, Nopan didn't call him an alien anymore, but Lex wasn't convinced 'Se'geeth' was much better. He tried to ask Nona why everyone insisted on calling him that, but all she did was shake her head sadly and tell that he _was_ Se'geeth. A repetition of "Why?" only got him that he'd be told when he was older. Lex _hated_ it when grown ups did that to him.

At the beginning of the third week, Nopan came home from work (Lex was pretty sure he worked for the goverment, possibly even for the 'Council' that the kidnapper had mentioned) and immediately declared that Lex was starting school in the morning.

For a moment, Lex could only beam at him and glow with excitement. Maybe Nopan didn't hate him after all. Then Lex threw himself forward and delivered a giant hug and sloppy kiss that even Daddy would have snapped at him for trying. Nopan didn't even complain much; he just picked Lex up and handed him off to Nona who was more than happy to return the exuberant hug and kiss she got.

As they sat around the table for dinner that night, Nopan looked at Lex seriously, and stated, "You have been registered under the name Se'geeth-Lex." Lex wasn't really sure what 'registered' meant, but he was pretty sure he got the gist of what he was being told. Daddy used to use big words on him, too, so it was a familiar feeling of uncertainty. "Your teacher has been informed that you are an alien and don't fully understand our language yet." There was a couple of words he was fuzzy on in that remark, but he got 'you are an alien' so he figured it was a warning of some sort.

"Does everyone know I'm from Earth?" he asked, a little nervously, wondering if this planet had an entirely different take on 'Earth Invaders' than humans did.

For a moment, neither of his foster parents answered. Then Nopan said, "They will as soon as they hear your name." He hesitated a moment, then added, "Se'geeth, there is a famous legend about you. It is not a pleasant story. Try to keep out of trouble and for the love of God" – Lex was a little shaky yet on the alien version of religion, but he figured that was a close enough translation as far as conversational appeals to higher powers went – "stay away from Kal-El."

He didn't know what a kalel was either, but if they were that dangerous, he figured someone would point it out before he did something dumb. "Okay," he agreed, because avoiding trouble and staying away from things that required a parent type person to pray seemed like smart advice to him.

He _was_ curious, though, about the legend. Maybe someone would finally tell him who Se'geeth was. And maybe he'd even figure out why everyone insisted on calling _him_ that. It was almost as much incentive to go to school as learning to read and write in Alien.


End file.
